UK payments fintech Atoa secures $6.5m to challenge Visa and Mastercard’s high street dominance
Summary
The announcement comes hot on the heels of the Axe the Card Tax campaign that has called for regulators to cap Visa and Mastercards card fees for businesses.Atoas latest round of funding was led by Valar Ventures, a US fund backed by the co-founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel. Atoas previous investors, including Monzo and Tide backer Passion Capital, and Singapore based Leo Capital (having experience of card alternative models in India and Asia) have also continued their support in this round.Fighting Visa and Mastercards stranglehold on the high streetUnfavourable economic conditions, the pandemic and repeated rises in inflation have hit UK SMBs hard. With low fees, immediate payment and settlement, and amazing customer service, Atoa is literally everything my business needs.In the UK, \xa3850 billion worth of debit card transactions are processed every year. Atoa allows consumers and businesses to bypass obsolete payment stacks through open banking and account-to-account payments saving merchants up to 70% on transactions.This is unlike most fintechs which do not fundamentally disrupt the market but instead merely slot themselves onto the existing rails of Visa and Mastercard.80% of consumers in the UK have a banking app on their phone. Atoa enables consumers to pay via their UK mobile banking app directly and securely without downloading an additional application.Businesses can download the Atoa app, securely connect their merchant bank account and begin to take payments after a 5-minute set-up process.